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Bolin: New-look Northside Is Legit

Eric W. Bolin has been a sports reporter for the Times Record since October 2012. He covers sports, focusing on Northside High School. A native of Stilwell, Okla., Eric came to Fort Smith after working three years at ESPN. He is a graduate of Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Okla., and holds a bachelor's degree in mass communication.

Players were finally able to hit someone besides their classmates this week as football scrimmages began.

Northside went to Springdale Tuesday for a round-robin festival with the Bulldogs and Mountain Home. And the results were pretty enlightening.

I wasn’t able to catch the Northside-Mountain Home 25-minute piece as I was driving from Fort Smith after watching the Lady Bears dismantle Springdale in volleyball. But first-year coach Mike Falleur was glowing about his team’s performance. If it was anything like they showed in the night’s final scrimmage against Springdale, he had reason to be.

The Grizzlies defense was superb. Springdale managed just one play of more than 12 yards and it came on a 2nd-and-14 play. Bulldogs running back DeAndre Murray, who is one of the more highly recruited players in the state, finished with maybe 20 yards. The “maybe” caveat applies as precise stats were not kept.

But it wasn’t the yardage allowed or not allowed that was most telling. It was the simple attitude. Northside’s defense, at least last year, tended to be passive — especially as the game’s went into the second half. Much of that was because the defense was on the field way too often and it’s difficult to glean any fatigue factors in a scrimmage with 25-minute running clock.

That said, it was swarming. The new 3-4 scheme doesn’t appear to be a work-in-progress like new installations of techniques sometimes can be in the early parts of the fall. Nose tackles Kylin Washington and Carlos Aleman won’t get the big statistics but their clogging of the middle frees linebackers Evan Rollans, Kaden Woodard and Josh Kinnard to make plays, which they did in bunches Tuesday.

The offense didn’t show as many traditional formations and play calls as I thought. But, again, the tipping of hands isn’t advised in the preseason.

Yet, there are a couple certainties.

First is that Grant Hood is the quarterback. He played a majority of the series in the Springdale game, and after a fumble on the scrimmage’s opening play, was otherwise dynamic. He broke a couple of 15-plus yard runs and completed a few downfield passes.

New junior running back Justin Curry is the type of feature back teams covet. If his offensive line develops — there are three sophomores and two juniors starting — he’s primed for an 800-to-1,000-yard kind of season. It could even be more if he gets more carries than Northside showed last night.

Of course Springdale isn’t Southside or Greenwood or even Conway. But they’re pretty comparable to Rogers, Rogers Heritage and Russellville, three teams Northside has on the schedule that appear to be winnable games.

The Grizzlies open the regular season September 6 on the road against 6A favorites Pine Bluff before getting Heritage and Rogers later in September. One of those should be a win. Two isn’t a stretch. And three, well, it’s possible, but we’ll have a much bigger conversation on our hands if Northside goes 3-0.